If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Thanks for that one. Anyone interested in animation and music is, I'm sure, familiar with animusic.com. If you_ haven't _ been there, you are in for a treat. The home page gives sixty second low res clips but google will take you to youtube where you can get a lot more.

wow, nice one to share. looks like it took years to draw all those images let alone put it all together in animation. it's a step or two beyond singing sheep I would say. really amazing. Did I mention it's also hilarious. I do see similarities to the singing sheep actually.

It's rather long but at least watch the intro.... It's fantastic... If you are into animation it should bedazzle you... and it was made by one woman working alone.

Been around for a year or so. I think it took her two years IIRC. She had to buy a new computer to manage the transfer to film for the animation festivals and, because she used music for which she didn't have the rights, she can't actually sell copies. Now that's dedication!

The film is interesting as a film. Technically it's certainly decent. I would guess it uses the computer extensively making this kind of thing more within reach for an independent filmmaker.

Aesthetically adept, it has a fresh set of styles that bounded leapfrogging through the picture. I think it worked on certain levels in that it kept things from getting predictable. On the other hand, that and the narrative devices used, frequently pulled me out of the story and drew my attention to the production design and/or art direction. There was, as a result, a curious tension between visual dazzle, charm and critical voice that I'm not sure entirely served each other. That elbowing around could well have been deliberate though because it fit what I think Nina Paley was trying to voice.

I've often wondered at the line between creativity, new thought and iconoclasm vs. conservative notions and cultural structures that have grown up around a rallying point.

Where does reverence belong? Who decides on when and if change is acceptable? And what values are the diverse forces within a larger force using to fortify the structure of their culture? And why does a film maker pick a traditional story told in a very unconventional and perhaps scathing voice in film when it's almost deliberately not of the standard formula?

I watched some of the interview footage with Nina Paley that they had adjacent to the movie on YouTube. Apparently this film created a huge stir in certain circles. She's been definitely playing with fire.

The argument she speaks of, IMHO, is not about the tangle of artistic freedom vs censorship vs copyright. I mean it is. But there's something that charges it more, and that is that this film is trivializing the structure of a particular civilization and all that is dependent and growing from it. And my impression is that she is looking at the old Eastern through modern Western eyes. And the ensuing clash is not unexpected especially when the criticism is coming from an outsider who is in this case a Western female.

One of the things that hold large groups together is an agreement to play by certain rules that serve the collective values over those of the individual partially because of the power that comes from human cooperation. And religion in part serves that end. That is bad for some and good for others.

She seems to parallel the copyright issue with religious structure. Both kinds of law are agreed upon glue that holds their respective systems together. And many of the people within those systems have interests in stability.

I don't know if she said that, since I didn't listen to all her interview snippets, but it appears that way to me that she sees both systems as flawed and obsolete to a greater or lesser degree. And she's riding a paradigm shift in support of reform if not out and out change. Based on the tone of the film and interviews, I think she's committed. But in my armchair view, she's essentially going to war in a passive aggressive way, seeking to use media art to make her case.

Fascinating. It's not a soft comment she's making. And she's certainly being heard. The effect is a bit of a nail biter. There's more drama outside the film than in, in no small part because of the stakes.

"Not a bit is wasted and the best is yet to come. . ." -- remembered from a dream